Instagram Jesus Week 7: Devotional Day 5
DAY 5
Daily devotional
Read
Mark 1:35, John 17
Ask
What’s my prayer life look like, really?
Reflect
Can I be honest? This is the one area in which I have always wanted to grow. Prayer. Prayer is foundational. I have more books on prayer than any other. It’s like I think I can master it or something. If I just get one more book, I will be a prayer warrior!
One author talks about prayer this way: it is the chief service of a life in God’s plan. In all other service we are constantly limited by space, bodily strength, equipment, material obstacles, difficulties involved in peculiar differences of personality. Prayer knows no limitations. In every battle the real victory is won in secret, beforehand, by prayer. Prayer is striking the winning blow at the concealed enemy.
I love the picture of Jesus going to a solitary place. Jesus somehow made more time for prayer and less time for sleep. Remember he had just been up all night healing with the entire town at his doorstep. Jesus didn’t need to pray because he was weak. He prayed because he was strong, and the source of his strength was his relationship with God his Father. Jesus knew that pressure and busy-ness should drive us towards prayer and not from it. Convicting? I should say!
Jesus knew the importance of solitary time with God. The great British Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “Woe to the man whose devotion is observed by everybody, and who never offers a secret supplication. Secret prayer is the secret of prayer, the strength of prayer. If you do not pray alone, you do not pray at all. Your heart must speak to God in secret.”
When I am alone with God I am far more apt to be honest. When I’m alone I am far more apt to hear Him. I mentioned all of my books and while I have learned about prayer, the truth lies in my daily habits and time that I choose to protect to be with Jesus. Do I choose to have protected time with my husband and family? Date nights and alone time with my girls? Absolutely. Making a habit of prayer and listening to Jesus takes the same effort.
How’s your prayer life really? How can you protect a time of prayer with God alone and not let anything else get in the way?
Read John 17 for a model of prayer: Jesus pours out his heart to his Father. Agape love is dripping from this chapter. Oh, how he loves us.